How should I finish my PPL rating?

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garlicbreadhamburger
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How should I finish my PPL rating?

Post by garlicbreadhamburger »

Last year, I was almost ready to take the flight test. Finished my ground school, soloed, got the requisite flight hours, and my instructor felt I was more or less there satisfactory. I forgot most of ground school and wanted a few weeks to refresh everything before taking the written exam and booking the flight test thereafter.

Then I got swamped with work. 80-100hrs/week for a whole year.

Here I am a year later. Work is sane again and I think I can free up 12 hours/week for 2-3 months. (1/3rd of those hours would be travel as it takes around 2 hours round trip for me to get to the field)

I'm thinking of re-doing ground school and hitting the books hard. Once I pass written, hit the air hard with the occasional written refreshers and get flight test ready.

The second option is wait another year and try to get in a better position to have even more free time next year. What do you guys think?
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Bede
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Re: How should I finish my PPL rating?

Post by Bede »

First choice: do it now. As quick as you can.
Second choice: wait until you can dedicate a few weeks to do nothing but eat, drink and sleep flying. Get it done in the shortest period of time.
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final28
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Re: How should I finish my PPL rating?

Post by final28 »

Go with option one. Even if you end up doing the written exam but can’t finish the flying you would be ahead. The written exam is valid for 24 months. Good motivation to get the flight test done within that time.
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photofly
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Re: How should I finish my PPL rating?

Post by photofly »

You write as though the only constraint on your training opportunity is the time you have available. Depending on with which FTU you want to train, instructor and aircraft availability will probably be a much more significant constraint.

That is, you can march into an FTU any time you like and demand to fly 20 hours a week, but unless they have an instructor and airplane standing by waiting for you (clue: they don’t) it isn’t going to happen.
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garlicbreadhamburger
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Re: How should I finish my PPL rating?

Post by garlicbreadhamburger »

Bede wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 1:03 pm First choice: do it now. As quick as you can.
Second choice: wait until you can dedicate a few weeks to do nothing but eat, drink and sleep flying. Get it done in the shortest period of time.

final28 wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 1:26 pm Go with option one. Even if you end up doing the written exam but can’t finish the flying you would be ahead. The written exam is valid for 24 months. Good motivation to get the flight test done within that time.
Thanks for the comments everyone. It seems like the smart people all think doing it asap is the best choice and its hard to argue with a solid wall of unanimous wisdom. Part of the reason I wanted to do the written exam and the flight test together is because having all the rules fresh in my mind would help with the flight test itself, or at a minimum help with the nerves and confidence. Seems like the just getting it done asap is far more important whatever minor benefit the latter would bring.

photofly wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:31 pm You write as though the only constraint on your training opportunity is the time you have available. Depending on with which FTU you want to train, instructor and aircraft availability will probably be a much more significant constraint.

That is, you can march into an FTU any time you like and demand to fly 20 hours a week, but unless they have an instructor and airplane standing by waiting for you (clue: they don’t) it isn’t going to happen.
I completely forgot about the joy logging early in the morning every few days to book the planes and instructor before it got all snatched up by noon. I'll need to book up the dates as soon as they become available in January/Feb then.
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